Stability and Performance

• Fixed a variety of crashes.
• Addressed an issue preventing the game from starting on certain Windows 10 and earlier systems.
• Resolved a crash when loading old Return of Rome saves in Single Player mode.

Graphics

• Animated Profile Icons are now moving as intended in the Player Icons menu.

Settings

• Clamping mouse to window now works properly with multi-monitor setups on any monitor.

Xbox

• Fixed an issue that caused navigation issues in the Radial Menu when playing with a controller. Positions of items in the radial menu should be back to normal.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Y button in the controller to behave unintendedly when a building was selected depending on the current Age or the player’s civilization. The Y button should now produce the intended unit for each building no matter the Age or civilization.

General

• Fixed a bug that caused villagers to sometimes generate on top of forest trees, making them unable to work or move, when playing Empire Wars.
• Fixed foragers or miners sometimes not generating in the appropriate number when playing Empire Wars.
• Fixed mills and mining camps sometimes generating off-grid.
• Fixed villagers sometimes not properly depositing resources to mills and mining camps.

Map Balance

• Cliffbound:
  • Added preventative measures to ensure villagers no longer generate trapped inside forests when playing Empire Wars.
• Dunesprings:
  • Relics are now more evenly spread out across the map.
  • The player’s starting gold deposit has been reduced from seven to five tiles.
• Golden Stream:
  • The middle now scales more appropriately when playing on larger map sizes.
• Hollow Woodlands:
  • The spacing between the player’s town centres and the water is now more even.
  • Adjusted resources to ensure a more balanced distribution between players.
  • Heavily decreased the chance of villagers generating trapped between forest trees.
  • Neutral huntable animals now spawn in groups of three, instead of groups of four.
• Isthmus:
  • Fixed a bug that allowed players to sometimes wall across the unbuildable terrain.
  • Increased the width of the unbuildable terrain.
  • Fixed stone not generating on the small islets when said islets are generating too close to the edge of the map.
  • Islets now generate more evenly between the two bodies of water.
  • Islets have been increased in size, allowing for more resources and easier building placement.
  • Fixed islets not generating appropriately when playing on larger map sizes.
  • Fixed units behaving strangely when fighting around the central pyramid.
• Karsts:
  • The player’s starting stone deposit has been reduced from five to three tiles.
  • Minor aesthetic adjustments have been made.
• Mountain Dunes:
  • The elevation on the map now scales more appropriately on larger map sizes.
• River Divide:
  • Shorefish now consistently spawn on the player’s side of the river.
• Sandrift:
  • Fixed some incorrect terrains occasionally appearing out of place on the map.
  • Fixed a bug that caused forests to not generate correctly for all players.
• The Passage:
  • Fixed some forests acting like straggler trees, making them removable by placing buildings on top of them.
  • Fixed relics sometimes not being retrievable when generating on shallows that were too small.
  • Fixed resources sometimes generating further away from the player’s town centres than intended.
  • Docks and watch towers are now exclusive to Empire Wars and generate much farther away from enemy docks.
  • Fixed player-specific resources sometimes not generating on larger map sizes.
  • Fixed a bug that caused forests to not generate correctly for all players.
• Shrubland:
  • Added preventative measures to ensure villagers no longer generate trapped inside forests when playing Empire Wars.
  • Relics are now more evenly spread out between the players.
  • Fixed relics sometimes being inaccessible after generating inside forests.
  • Fixed the relic on Capture the Relic being entrapped and impossible to retrieve.
  • Slightly reduced the number of forage bushes on the map.
  • The player’s starting gold deposit has been reduced from seven to five tiles.
  • Fixed relics sometimes generating trapped between forage bushes.

Stability & Performance

• Fixed a freeze that occurs when “Ungroup” hotkey is pressed and fish are selected.

Achievements

• Return of Rome Steam achievements will unlock correctly now.
• “Georgian Victory” & “Armenian Victory” will unlock correctly now.
• “Rhapsody of the Bohemians” achievement will now unlock correctly when Houfnice get created after researching the Houfnice tech.
• Fixed an issue with achievements involving conversions, so “Wololo”, “Losing your religion” and “Unexpected” achievement can be unlocked again.
• Fixed an issue with the “Castle of Doubt” achievement, so it unlocks when your castle under construction gets destroyed, instead of the opponent’s castle.
• Co-Op achievement “Can I be Frank with you” works correctly now.

Graphics

• 3D water is now displayed with the same color in scenario editor as in game.

Audio

• Shrivamsha Riders will now trigger the correct notification sound while being attacked.

UI

• Fixed an issue where some singleplayer and multiplayer game settings would sometimes carry over to default settings in new custom scenarios.
• Fixed an issue where the Capture Age Icon would overlap with the text of the “Spectate with Capture Age” button in these languages: Spanish, French, Russian, Polish.

Hotkeys

• Added a new Donjon hotkey group with train hotkeys for Donjon Serjeants and Spearmen.

Xbox

• Fixed an issue where the “Unload” button for Rams would not work.
• The loading screen of replays will display all information correctly now.
• Xbox players will no longer falsely receive warnings about user made content when spectating official multiplayer scenarios.
• Fixed an issue where the “Voice chat to Text” setting could not be turned on.
• Corrected the Tech Tree of the Poles civilization to display the Folwark as a Feudal Age requirement instead of the mill.
• Disconnect popup only displays once if disconnected from the network while in the lobby browser screen.

General

• Weapon reload upon ungarrisoning now affects only ranged units.
• Added “Ungarrison” button to Siege Towers to immediately ungarrison units (without choosing the location to ungarrison).
• Farms can now be automatically placed around a Mill or a Town Center by holding Shift (LT for Xbox) and clicking the Farm over the Building.
• All scouting units can now use the Auto Scout functionality instead of just the starting one.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Mule Carts were not able to board Transport Ships.
• Fixed an issue where Fishing Ships would go idle after completing a Fish Trap instead of building nearby ones, when the one they have just built is already worked on.
• Villagers should be more efficient at getting to their target location and should become idle less likely when being periodically blocked.
• Fixed an issue where some units could fail to attack enemy buildings when attack moving or patrolling using waypoints.
• Fixed an issue where units could spawn at the opposite side of a building, when the closest spawning point to the rally point was blocked.
• Fixed an issue where individual units were not being merged into their closest formations correctly.
• Units no longer stutter when attempting to garrison into moving siege weapons.
• Sheep will always evacuate construction sites now, once a villagers is close enough to start building.
• Siege Towers will not move towards enemies when nearby allies are under attack.
• Fixed an exploit where one could avoid cracked terrain bonus damage by constructing and deleting a farm before constructing a building on the cracked terrain.
• Return of Rome: If a Hittite player starts with towers, they will correctly receive additional population space from the team bonus.
• Patrolling units will evacuate construction sites to let Villagers start building.
• Prevented hunters from attacking nearby violent huntable animals upon depleting the one they are currently working on when “Drop Off” has been used.
• Fixed an issue where using shift+clicking on garrisoned units on Siege Towers would not ungarrison any units.

General

• Thoros #5: Of Turncoats and Traitors: The player is no longer attacked by the Byzantines right away after taking control of Mleh’s camp.

Campaign Missions

• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Gaiseric’:
  • Can no longer automatically rebuild captured Farms.
  • Packed Town Center build rates reduced in Feudal, Castle, and Imperial Age.
  • Huns are more likely to cross the Pyrenees to attack.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Ragnar’:
  • Can no longer view inaccessible technologies in the Barracks and Stables.
  • The Holmgard and Konungard objective can no longer become blocked by prematurely losing a hut to enemy attacks.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Ironside’:
  • Hvitserk will now spawn more consistently.
  • Razed buildings appear correctly in the post game statistics now.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Otto’:
  • Vassals at 1 loyalty will now be more likely to rebel as intended.
  • West Francia will demand tribute when only two vassals are in rebellion instead of three, making it easier to set conditions for the Saxon Revenge achievement.
  • Can no longer receive free stone by building Castles in forbidden areas.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Stephen’:
  • Henry FitzEmpress’ units will no longer be able to reach Ireland leading to a potentially unwinnable state.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Constantine XI’:
  • Perfusion now works as expected.
  • Now begin with Conscription researched.

Limited-Time Scenario

• The Siege:
  • Siege Towers are disabled for Byzantine players.

General

• (Elite) Battle Elephant cost decreased from 110 food 70 gold → 100 food 70 gold.
• (Elite) Battle Elephant base movement speed increased from 0.88 → 0.9.
• Heavy Scorpion upgrade cost decreased from 800 food 900 wood → 800 food 750 wood.
• Heavy Scorpion HP increased from 55 → 60.
• Heavy Scorpion melee armor increased from 0 → 1.
• Watch Tower-line cost decreased from 50 wood 125 stone → 35 wood 125 stone.
• (Elite) Cannon Galleon projectile speed increased from 3 → 3.5.
• Devotion technology cost increased from 100 food 150 gold → 100 food 200 gold.
• Siege Engineers now affects Demolition Ships.

Armenians

• Lose access to Shipwright.

Bengalis

• Lose access to Parthian Tactics.
• (Elite) Ratha armor increased from 2/1 → 3/2 (3/3).
• (Elite) Ratha now deals +1 (+2) bonus damage vs. the Spearman armor class.

Berbers

• Gain access to Shipwright.

Bulgarians

• (Elite) Konnik train time decreased from 19 seconds → 16 seconds.

Dravidians

• Wootz Steel cost decreased from 750 food 600 gold → 650 food 550 gold.

Georgians

• Cavalry regenerate 15% HP per minute starting in Feudal Age civilization bonus changed → Cavalry regenerate 5/10/15 HP per minute in Feudal/Castle/Imperial Age.

Huns

• Empire Wars Only: Now start without both the -100 wood penalty and the pre-generated houses.

Malay

• Battle Elephant discount civilization bonus decreased from -30/40% in Castle/Imperial Age → 25/35%.

Mongols

• Light Cavalry, Hussars, Steppe Lancers +30% HP civilization bonus changed → Scout Cavalry-line and Steppe Lancers +20/30% HP in Castle/Imperial Age.

Sicilians

• Castles built 50%, Town Centers built 100% faster civilization bonus changed → Fortifications built 50%, Town Centers built 100% faster.
• Donjon base construction time increased from 90 seconds → 125 seconds (83 seconds after civilization bonus).
• Donjon cost decreased from 75 wood 175 stone → 50 wood 175 stone.

New Maps

We have added eleven new maps that have been created for the Red Bull Wololo: El Reinado tournament. However, note that these maps support any number of players on any map size.

The maps have been optimised for competitive two-player games, but some will appear more chaotic and random when playing with more than two players. These maps include:

• Isthmus
• River Divide
• The Passage

With more random elements to them, these maps may deviate slightly from the two-player variants.

However, if you like more chaotic and unpredictable layouts, this may be right up your alley.

You’ll find the maps in the ranked tournament ladder, as well as custom lobbies, where any of the new maps can be selected and played today.

🌐 Cliffbound

🌐 Isthmus

🌐 Dunesprings

🌐 Golden Stream

🌐 Mountain Dunes

🌐 River Divide

🌐 Sandrift

🌐 Shrubland

🌐 The Passage

🌐 Hollow Woodlands

🌐 Karsts

General

• Fixed a crash that would appear upon launch of a lobby, if a player left the lobby and another player joined the same player slot.

Scripting

• Action-ungarrison now will ungarrison individual units if a unit is a target.
• Added new filter function (fe-filter-garrisoned typeOP garrisonState) where 0 (default) will filter for only ungarrisoned units as before, 1 will filter for garrisoned or ungarrisoned units, and 2 will filter exclusively for garrisoned units.
• Villagers will less often rapidly switch tasks between attacking and gathering when a forward building is being constructed, especially if sn-villager-attack-reset is 0.

Investigation

• Game does not run on older Windows 10 and earlier Windows systems.

As always, we are continuing to track issues reported by the community for future updates.

For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!

General

• Fixed an issue where Scouts can skip their reload animations.

AI Updates

• Unique AI names have been shortened to use less screen space.

AI Updates (Nomad Mode)

• Fixed a problem in Nomad mode where building your Town Center close to an AI’s Town Center could cause the AI to stop playing. Now, the AI will still start building again in a different location.

UX/UI & Menus (All Platforms)

• Added a separate Free-For-All map pool which contains Megarandom and Land Megarandom only. This pool has one veto and is used when a Free-For-All match is found in Quick Match. We plan to look at how best to expand this pool in future with maps which are more appropriate for the Free-For-All experience.
• Fixed an issue on Xbox consoles where a permission dialogue would show for settings other than cross play when adjusting Cross Play settings.
• Fix an issue on Xbox consoles where Pages of History failed to display.
• Fixed a bug where if the player views a replay from someone else’s profile, after the replay they were viewing their own profile. Now, after a replay, players will view the profile they originally started the replay from.
• Reduced rose sigil size.
• Fixed a softlock that may occur when accepting an invite while in a loading screen of the tutorial mission.

Remappable Hotkeys

• It’s now possible to bind the keys Ctrl+NumLock, Ctrl+Pause and Ctrl+ScrollLock.

General Changes & Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that required using parameters on Steam for older PCs to avoid a crash during launch.
• Fixed an issue where Springalds received extra damage from Horseman and Mangonels.
• Fixed an issue where the HRE Prelate UI counter wasn’t displayed. 
• Fixed a Sync Error that would occur when using the “It Was Known” cheat in a multiplayer match.

All Civilizations

• Arrow ships Food cost reduced from 90 to 80.
• Springald ship Food cost reduced from 120 to 110.

                        Abbasid Dynasty

• Culture Wing – Medical Centers now applies a healing aura to Town Centers as well as Keeps.

                             Ayyubids

(Variant Civilization: Abbasid Dynasty)

• Corrected an issue where Tower of the Sultan would lose Blacksmith upgrades after researching incendiary arrows.

                             Byzantines

• Increased the Mercenary Contract research time from 0 to 10 seconds to allow for adjustment in case of a mis-click.  
• Dromon Food cost reduced from 110 to 100.

                                  English

• Campfire has been removed from the Man-at-Arms and can now be found on the Scout.
• Campfire now shines brighter with an increase in sight from 3 to 5 tiles.
• Campfire now has team color on the minimap.
• Abbey of Kings Landmark now automatically queues a free King upon completion of the Landmark.
• Berkshire Palace Landmark weapon range bonus reduced from 15 tiles to 14.5 tiles.
• Wynguard Palace Landmark
  • Wynguard Footman cost changed from 200 Food, 500 Gold to 300 Food, 400 Gold.
  • Ranger and Footman train time reduced from 50 to 45 seconds.

                              French

• War Cog Food cost reduced from 85 to 75.

                            Jeanne d'Arc

(Variant Civilization: French)

• Smithy’s Grace, the French Civilization bonus that provides free Blacksmith Upgrades, is no longer granted to Jeanne d’Arc.

                     Order of the Dragon

(Variant Civilization: Holy Roman Empire)

• Battering Ram build time reduced from 70 seconds to 45 seconds.
• Siege Tower build time reduced from 30 to 19.5 seconds.

                              Ottomans

• Grand Galley Food cost reduced from 150 to 135.

                                Rus

• Kremlin’s default arrow and garrison arrow weapon range reduced from 8 to 7 tiles.

Investigation

Known Issue

We’ve seen reports of players attempting to queue for Free-For-All (FFA) in a party receiving a server error message. Party play is currently not supported while queueing for a FFA match and the option to select the FFA match type should be disabled while in a party. Currently, the option is not disabled properly, and the server error is preventing teams from entering the FFA queue. This is intended, and we plan to make a future fix to disable the FFA option in these circumstances.

Community-Reported Issues:

• Your reports continue being crucial to our prioritization and implementation of fixes and features in the game. Keep them coming!
  

For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!

Coming Up…

We’re working on our next update and look forward to sharing more soon.

New! Limited-time Scenario: The Siege

Introducing The Siege, a new multiplayer limited-time scenario! Play 2v2, co-op vs AI, or solo vs AI as the Turks or Byzantines at the epic 1453 Siege of Constantinople.
Turks must build up their army to take the Monument before time runs out. Byzantines have defenses but limited resources to hold on as long as they can. Both sides do battle over the massive and historically-inspired city of Constantinople.
Play against other players, team up against the AI, or play solo as either side of the battle.
And if you love The Siege, the new Victors and Vanquished expansion includes two solo scenarios that expand on the battle with voice acting, more objectives, scripted events, and more!

Stability & Performance

• Fixed an out of sync issue which could occur in games with AI players.
• Fixed a pathfinding crash introduced in Update 107882.

Hotkeys

• Fixed an issue where non-standard keys from different keyboard layouts would not be registered.
• Seek Shelter hotkey now works correctly for Mule Carts.
• Hotkeys for training units on the other Dock page now work correctly when holding down Shift.

Recorded Games & Spectator

• Players on the scoreboard are no longer occasionally falsely displayed as resigned (crossed out).

Multiplayer

• Starting a LAN server no longer causes a disconnect from multiplayer services.

Xbox

• A significant drop in performance no longer occurs when opening Command Menu for a unit.
• Fixed an issue where the wrong loading screen would appear for campaign missions.
• Campaign difficulty icons now appear next to the labels of campaign missions on the “Victors and Vanquished” campaign screen.
• Added a visual indicator in the campaign menu to show ownership status of the Victors and Vanquished DLC.
• Fixed an issue where the building requirements for the next age would disappear when hovering over the age-up button.
• Fixed an issue where pressing “A” on a building would set the rally point to itself.

General

• Upon ungarrisoning from siege weapons, units with a projectile attack must now go through a reload time before attacking.

Fixes

• Units tasked to garrison or looking for shelter will now walk towards buildings with no free garrison space instead of staying idle.
• Villagers can no longer convert resources into food when using the Drop Off command.
• Villagers now go to the correct dropsite depending on the resource they are carrying, and can no longer drop resources at the wrong dropsites.
• Drop Resources command now works correctly for builders carrying resources.
• Groups of units in formation will no longer sometimes stop for a moment before starting to attack their target unit.
• Units will no longer ignore previous waypoints when receiving a queued garrison command.
• All Back to Work and Send Villagers Back to Work commands are no longer disallowed when having civilian and military buildings selected together.

General

• Fixed an issue where objectives depending on Tributes would not work in certain Campaign missions, such as Barbarossa, Pachacuti, Dukes of the West.

Campaign Missions

• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Ragnar’:
  • Varangian traders (Trade Cogs) can now pick up and deliver gold from Docks.
  • Fixed an issue where ships could get stuck behind a dock due to decorations around it.
  • Assigned “Pagan Shrines” the correct default hotkey in the build menu.
  • (Xbox) Disabled quick commands for the “Pagan Shrine” object.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Mstislav’:
  • Player can no longer leave the area of the main base on the north before completing the initial objective.
  • All units of the “Mongol Trap” will now successfully attack the player’s base.
  • The Lithuanian Priests will now remain in the area they spawned and not steal relics from the map.
  • (Xbox) Fixed an issue where the site radial menu allowed selecting villagers that should not be selectable.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Temujin’:
  • (Xbox) Added a map marker for the objective to meet Ong Khan.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Nobunaga’:
  • (Xbox) HUD elements now change their color as expected when choosing a clan.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Karlsefni’:
  • (Xbox) The in-game narrator now reads all the dialogue prompts.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Robert’:
  • Changed the AI behavior to sell stone less frequently, so the player cannot repeatedly buy stone and tribute it to gain support of the AI.
  • (Xbox) All objectives will now be shown on the right-hand side objective panel.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Drake’:
  • “Donkeys” will now have an appropriate animation.
• Victors and Vanquished: ‘Stephen’:
  • (Xbox) Fixed an issue with the introduction narration, so it’s on parity with the PC version now and the pop-up messages appear sequentially.
• Ascent of Egypt 12: ‘Siege in Canaan’:
  • AI script error no longer appears at the start of the scenario.

General

• Fixed an issue where Custom Scenario game mode wasn’t available in Return of Rome lobbies.

General

• The CD/HD version of the AI will now work properly again when playing on the “Huge” map size.

Scripting

• GIANT-MAP and “giant” are now defined as the “Huge” map size for legacy AI support.
• For the (map-size) fact, the following constants are now defined for the new map sizes: miniature-map, tiny-map, small-map, medium-map, normal-map, large-map, huge-map, giant-map, massive-map, enormous-map, colossal-map, incredible-map, monstrous-map, ludicrous-map.
• For the map size dependent #load-ifs, the following are now defined for the new map sizes: MINIATURE-MAP-SIZE, TINY-MAP-SIZE, SMALL-MAP-SIZE, MEDIUM-MAP-SIZE, NORMAL-MAP-SIZE, LARGE-MAP-SIZE, HUGE-MAP-SIZE, GIANT-MAP-SIZE, MASSIVE-MAP-SIZE, ENORMOUS-MAP-SIZE, COLOSSAL-MAP-SIZE, INCREDIBLE-MAP-SIZE, MONSTROUS-MAP-SIZE, LUDICROUS-MAP-SIZE
• (players-tribute) and (players-tribute-memory) no longer return incorrect values and now perform as expected.

Investigation

As always, we are continuing to track issues reported by the community for future updates.

For other known issues, please visit this page to see what’s being tracked!

Known Issues

• Shepherds will not switch to a new sheep automatically once the current one is depleted, if “Drop Off” resources command was used.
• Hunters may turn into lumberjacks and begin cutting trees, after all deer are depleted, if “Drop Off” resources command was used.

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where using the “Drop Off” command under certain circumstances could cause villagers to “hunt” trees down and gather food from them.
• Hunters will no longer turn into Lumberjacks after dropping off food manually by right-clicking the Town Center.
• After depleting a Boar, Hunters will no longer automatically hunt another live Boar if the “Drop Off” resources command was used.
• After depleting a Sheep, Shepherds will automatically go to another Sheep even if “Drop Off” command was used.
• After using the “Drop Off” or “Back to Work” commands, villagers will go back to the same target they were previously working on, instead of picking a new one. If villagers were previously standing idle, they will go back to that location consistently.

Achievements

• Return of Rome achievements should be triggering once again.